NEW URL

I just wanted to let everyone know that I have changed the URL to our blog. I'm so excited to tell you that I finally have my own domain name!!!! Our new web address will be www.ourwonderfulbeautifullife.com. But you will still be able to put in our old address www.mandiandbenmartin.blogspot.com and find the blog! So please update your bookmarks!

HO, HO, HO (and a little touch of bah hum bug)

Ok, so its Christmas time and for those of you that follow me on twitter you know that I am completely 100% not ready. I havent so much has bought a single gift this year. Yea I know what your thinking... " Mandi there are plenty of people that dont do their holiday shopping until Dec. Thats when you get all the good sales." Well thats just not me. I'm a buy all year kinda girl. A go out on Black Friday kinda girl. A I have everyone's perfect gift wrapped and ready to go by the 15th kinda a girl. A... Well you get the point. But not this year. This year I will be a fly by the seat of my pant kinda girl.... And well to be honest I'm not really sure how to deal with that. Between the multiple moves, a removal of a nonessential body part and the complete change in lifestyle that we are currently undergoing I am well...I'm just not ready for old Saint Nick to come plopping down my chimney. So if you dont get a gift this year please know that it wasnt for a lack of trying, just more a lack of time and if you get a gift and its from Wal-Mart, well just know thats about as fancy as it gets for us way out here in the sticks... Love you all... Merry Christmas and Well cut me some slack people ok... lol just kidding love ya! Mandikins!

She is a beautiful girl.....

But its time people.... It is time for Laney to be potty trained. I'm not sure how this is going to go over once we inform Laney of this fact. But we will soon be entering PottyTraining BootCamp...

As of wednesday until sunday she will only get diapers at night. It will either be panties or nothing for the rest of the day. I will follow her around with a potty as ever much as I need to. But I will have her peeing in that potty at least once before the weekend is over.

Now you explain all this to this super sweet face...

What Just happened here?

Well it all started Wednesday afternoon when I told Ben that I wasnt feeling very good. I had a tummy ache and really just didnt feel up to anything. I went to bed that night thinking it was indigestion (from my very healthy diet) and that I would take some pepto and be fine in the morning. Well my tummy ache kept me up all night and by the next day it was just this huge pain in my side. We had promised the kids we could meet them for the Parent invited Thanksgivings lunch they had planned at their school, so I popped a Tylenol 3 and headed to the school. By the time the lunch was over I was in pain again and quickly headed home to put laney down for a nap and lay down myself. Ben came home at 5pm to me curled up on the couch in some pretty serious pain. So I went begruningly to the ER (thinking they were going to tell me I had gas or something equally non serious) and send me home. Turns out, not so much. My appendix as double its normal size and had to come out NOW. So I was taken via an ambulance to another hospital 30 minutes away and rushed in to the OR. It all actually happened so quickly that by the time my MIL drove a hour to our house and then Ben drove a half hour to the other hospital I was already out of surgery. They got the whole thing out and I only have three little scars to show for it. The only scary part really was that I almost just went to bed instead of listening to Ben and going to the ER. I really thought it was going to be a waste of time. Thank God, that I made myself go up there. Because from what I've heard a burst appendix is a whole lot worse then appendicitis. So here I am laying in bed taking it easy and trying to prep myself for the next crazy week we have coming up. Leave it to me to have minor surgery the week before a birthday, move and Thanksgiving... I'm such a drama queen. LOL

A true love of nature...

So I tried to convince myself to get up last night and write this post. Since I was just laying there thinking about everything I had to say and how I wasnt going to fall asleep anytime soon I might as well put the time to good use. Then the worst thing that could possibly happen to you when you're having one of those "words spilling out of your mind" moments happened... I fell asleep, so quickly in fact that I had dreams about what I was thinking about writing. So... Now I have to try to remember all the details of the quirky and funny story I was wanting to tell you last night. Since we are living on a farm (Ben's dream home... it even has a pond on it) Ben has taken advantage of the rural landscape to show the kids some of the things they just dont get to see as much living in the city. One day he was taking the younger two out for one of their nature walks (Carolina, like her mother, prefers to stay inside) and there were grasshoppers everywhere. They were jumping around so much one of them actually landed on George's hand. They all held very still and got a real good look at it. Finally after they had seen and talked about this cool new bug Ben and George decided it was time to let it go. So George moved his little hand and the grasshopper jumped right off onto the ground. Well I guess Laney wasnt done looking at it quite yet and she ran over to the rock that Mr. Grasshopper had landed on and with all the force she could muster... stomped on him. Yep, thats right... she killed him. LOL Ben said "Laney you dont kill the grasshopper, you set it free." To which she replied "Nope, he's deaded." Then she proceed to run inside to tell me all about the deaded bug outside. "Guess what Mommy!!!! The bug is deaded! I smushed him! He jumped off Georgie and I and I killed him!!!" She was so excited that she had gotten the better of this poor little grasshopper. Not quite the true love of nature moment Ben had intended it to be, but a memorable moment none the less. God, thank you for my beautiful crazy little children...

Three day weekends...

Well today is the first day of our first 3 day weekend. What do you do with a husband that only has to work four days a week? Well you put him to work of course. You make a huge list of all the things that have to be done on that one day. Thankfully I have plenty to keep him busy. I mean I wouldnt want him to get bored or anything. lol So today we are off to play catch up. I will get my official TX tags for the Sub and maybe even my very own TX drivers License!!! I'm so excited! I've never had a TX one before, but have always wanted one. It really makes it feel official, I'm really a Texan now... And speaking of being a Texan... I have news on that front to. At Tarleton State University they are called the Texans and as of Jan 19th I will be one of them. Thats right I'm going to a real University! I'm so excited about it, actually I'm not the only one... Ben's pretty excited to (partially because he will also be a student for the next 6 months at work) but mostly because I will be the first person in my family to get a degree. We decided that the older the kids get the more we need to be a two income family and we are blessed with the fact that the Navy is footing the whole bill. Thats right, something great is coming out of Ben's 12 years of service to the US Navy... a free degree for me! Thank you Post 9-11 gi bill!!!!!! I am planning to major in communications and minor in finance. I'm not really sure what kinda job that means I'm gonna look for after I graduate, actually at this point I'm just thinking about getting thru 4 years of school. Its been a long time and since I didnt technically finish school, I have a lot of catching up to do. But we are very excited about it and I'm very excited to have such a great support system. I'm a pretty blessed girl...

"Hey, lets let someone else move in our house!"

Okay so this ones gonna be a rant... So sit down, hold on tight and prepare for maybe some bad language. About four months ago Ben and I had an Epiphany. Since we cant sell the house, lets just rent it out. We'll find some super nice people and let them live in our beautiful home for a monthly payment, that I'm sure will always be on time (if not early) each month. Lets post an ad, meet with them and maybe even become friendly with them before they move in just to get to know them. Check, check and check... So month one arrives and hey, something funny happened at the bank and the direct deposit didnt go through. Well thats weird, but she's gonna wire us the money ASAP (one week later and 200.00 dollars short) and everything will be fine next month. She'll even change banks if she has too. Month two rolls around and wouldnt you know it, rent doesnt show up again. You know rent, plus the 200.00 dollars that she owes us from last month... Okay, well just send me a check. waiting....waiting....waiting... NOTHING. Then out of the blue one day 1200.00 shows up in my bank account. Then a couple of nights later (like 10) she shows up at Ben's house with 800.00 cash...and assures us that this will NEVER happen again. October 1st rolls around and thats right you guessed it, NO RENT!!! Only now we are waiting for her rent to pay our rent and things are starting to get ugly. I have to call the property manager and actually ask her to hold the check that I wrote her so that it doesnt BOUNCE!!!! UMMM Can you say embarrassing... Finally we get a hold of her "husband" (we're still not really sure about that) and he wires us 1500.00 dollars. Great, thats only 300.00 short of what rent is... I guess in their little world you just pay what you can and assume the universe will take care of the rest. So the decision is made that these people have got to get the H**L out of our house. Not to mention that we cant sell it with them in there. Oh and lets talk about selling it for just a second. They also told us that they wanted to buy our house and we went thru a entire month long process with them to close on the house, which they backed out of at the very last minute... So on Oct 15th we told them they had 2 weeks to find somewhere else to live and that we would be putting the house one the market. Meaning that they would be moved out by the 31st. Well the 31st came and went and they were still in there. Ben and I get a phone call yesterday ( the 1st) telling us that they house they were supposed to move into was suddenly bought over night, with cash, oh my!!!! And now they have no where to move :-(

So not my prob. So Ben spent the better part of yesterday watching them get all their shit stuff out of the house until 1am. Well all of their stuff except for the HUGE pile of trash in our garage and when I say huge, I mean taking up a whole parking spot huge and the broken furniture off our lawn!!!! But this is actually a good thing, well sorta...

They are gone and out of my house and it can now be placed on the market will we will NEVER EVER EVER rent out again...